I love dogs. Compared to us, they have very little intelligence and physical size. But they use every dogging bit of it they’ve got. The only difference between us and them is that they aren’t capable of exploring and mimicking our social structure. If they could, this world would be run by dogs. The rotties would tear our throats out, the greyhounds would outrun us and cut us down and the terriers would stand on our vacant corpses, chew on our entrails and go ‘yip, yip, yip’.
What dogs have you guys got? I have a 2-year-old yorkshire terrier that a mate of my dad’s was giving away free to a good home. I have a close personal relationship with this little guy. If he looks hungry, I’ll feed him some of whatever I’m eating. Obviously you can’t use physical discipline on a dog this size, but if he’s doing something wrong I’ll do something to make sure he knows he’s going wrong. My belief is that using physical discipline on dogs shows the presence of stupidity in the owner. You guys?
[quote]David_Wise wrote:
My belief is that using physical discipline on dogs shows the presence of stupidity in the owner. You guys?[/quote]
I’ll second that notion. Beating on animals, kids, or women is just about ranked the same in my book.
I did, but I don’t mind too much repeating it. This is Shadow. 125 pounds of pure slobber monster. He’s taken on the big brother role to the 9-pound kitten we’ve got too.
I have one Siberian Husky, Makia. And one Sheppard mix, Willy. I’ve had Willy for 9 years and Makia for 8. I love them both to death and they are a real part of the family.
Is he a purebreed? Purebreeds get like that. I much prefer mongrels. They don’t have snob appeal but they have hybrid vigour and they’ve got it where it counts. Maybe this thread should die and any further comment go into the T-beast thread?
He’s a happy little doggy here. I had to crop it out but he’s chewing on a bone that’s about twice his size.
He was about 3 months old here. He’s about 2 now and is completely adorable. Everyone loves him and he is the most well behaved dog ever. Just an angel.
I 2nd not hitting your dogs. I’m not saying I’ve never done it , but ideally you want them at the point where a verbal rebuke is the most powerful thing you can do to them. If you need to physically admonish your animal then there’s something wrong with your relationship with it. The bond with your dogs is such a powerful thing, it’s much better for it to be based on love and not fear.
I’ve done it to my old labrador. But I think the most powerful thing you can do to a dog is just to ignore it- they almost physically need your attention.
This is Echo, my 1.5 year old golden retriever who has a HYOOOOGE amount of energy to burn and loves to horseplay or run outside at any time of the day. I trained him myself and I took this picture in our backyard. He’s pretty much the biggest puppy ever.
On the physical disipline, I have hit a dog once because it was about to hurt another animal (not my dog but I was sitting it and it wasn’t listening). Some people are wusses when it comes to training/living with their dog. I had a puppy (just training it for a friend while out of state) and it crapped on the carpet and I kind of knocked it on it’s side and picked him up and rubbed his face in it and raised my voice (keeping my emotions normal, that is one of the worst things you can do is talking to an animal with raised emotions) and then threw it outside to finish it’s business. It never crapped or pissed in the house again. You want the relationship to be about love but you have to put some kind of fear that you are the boss and you won’t hesitate to fix the problem.
[quote]Chris Adams wrote:
On the physical disipline, I have hit a dog once because it was about to hurt another animal (not my dog but I was sitting it and it wasn’t listening). Some people are wusses when it comes to training/living with their dog. I had a puppy (just training it for a friend while out of state) and it crapped on the carpet and I kind of knocked it on it’s side and picked him up and rubbed his face in it and raised my voice (keeping my emotions normal, that is one of the worst things you can do is talking to an animal with raised emotions) and then threw it outside to finish it’s business. It never crapped or pissed in the house again. You want the relationship to be about love but you have to put some kind of fear that you are the boss and you won’t hesitate to fix the problem.[/quote]
You gotta do what you gotta do but I’ve always found that a simple ‘no’ and consistency is enough. Puppies are puppies and it can take a long time to get them toilet trained. During this time I’ve always kept my patience in check and the paper towels and disinfectant handy.
I would be extremely angry if anyone did what you did to my dog when he’s only doing what’s natural for him.
A agree about the wusses with training. Many bad animals are that way simply because their owner hasn’t trained it and have let it go wild.
